Salary.com vs. reality (employee, highest, average, jobs)

[Hivemind31]

So most people are familiar with salary.com, a website that takes a job description, a geographical location and (once you sign up) a lot of other data and spits out a salary range for that position in that area.

My personal experience has conflicted greatly (negatively) with the data from that website. Not just for myself, but for everyone else I've ever known (at least, on a level where things like salary could be discussed). It's been this way my entire career (~15 years). The medians, in particular, have always seemed outlandish by comparison, and I'm wondering if that experience is common with others or if I've just had a skewed perception.

For reference, I work in IT management. Most of my experience has been in relatively low-cost areas (Midwest, southwest, etc.), but the website accounts for that. My current position (CIO) has a lot of variance within the salary band, but as I said, it's always been like this. I would estimate that, historically, I've made around the 10th percentile according to the website...no matter the job or location. I believe my highest paying position put me at the 24th percentile.

If this were just me, I'd chalk it up to poor negotiating skills, experience level, or whatever. But aside from a rare example here and there, I've never known ANYONE to make even the "median" salary for almost every position I'm familiar with (basically, the entire path from help desk to CIO).

How have your experiences matched up with salary.com's estimates?

Edit: Even since I've been in management, despite my best efforts...I could never get approval for anything higher than maybe the 20th percentile for any position I hired for. It kills me to have to pay these guys what I am for what they do, especially knowing what it was like to be in their shoes.

[4DM1N]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the data collected what's reported by the employee? I often wonder how much over-reporting is involved, which ultimately contaminates the data.

I've found that a lot of the data on sites like that appear to be skewed as well.

[Hivemind31]

Originally Posted by 4DM1N

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the data collected what's reported by the employee? I often wonder how much over-reporting is involved, which ultimately contaminates the data.

I've found that a lot of the data on sites like that appear to be skewed as well.

I honestly don't know. That was something I considered as well, but (for the people who do choose to over-report), that's gotta be like the worst place to do it

Edit: Looked it up. They make a big to-do about their "compensation consultants", but here's some highlights:


- Salary.com's team of compensation consultants reviews available, applicable market pay data to determine the true market for each job in the Salary Wizard.
- All of Salary.com's data is proprietary and is based on employer-reported data. It does not contain data from individual site users, placement agencies, job postings, nor any other sources that would traditionally be characterized as "unreliable" by compensation or human resource professionals.

So according to that, its the employer, not the employee or site user, that reports the data.

[4DM1N]

Originally Posted by Hivemind31

I honestly don't know. That was something I considered as well, but (for the people who do choose to over-report), that's gotta be like the worst place to do it

It might not even be intentional. Maybe they're accounting for bonuses and other financial pay outs they receive throughout the year. Also, even when you ask people what they earn in person, they're more than likely going to add in whatever inflates that bottom line (bonuses, PTO, commissions, etc.), because it makes them look better. It's just what people like to do I guess.

[MSchemist80]

Glassdoor is a bit more realistic. In my profession the most outlandish salary stats I've seen are from the American Chemical Society. Some of their medians are well over 50-100% higher than reality. I've found Glassdoor more in line with reality.

[Hivemind31]

Originally Posted by 4DM1N

It might not even be intentional. Maybe they're accounting for bonuses and other financial pay outs they receive throughout the year. Also, even when you ask people what they earn in person, they're more than likely going to add in whatever inflates that bottom line (bonuses, PTO, commissions, etc.), because it makes them look better. It's just what people like to do I guess.

I agree; there's definitely a margin of error for all sorts of psych bias. But still, in my experience, it's been a BIG discrepancy.

Also, quick side note: They separate bonuses into a different category. I hear what you're saying about other unintentional errors, just pointing that one out specifically because I know they account for it.

[Hivemind31]

Originally Posted by MSchemist80

Glassdoor is a bit more realistic. In my profession the most outlandish salary stats I've seen are from the American Chemical Society. Some of their medians are well over 50-100% higher than reality. I've found Glassdoor more in line with reality.

This has been my experience with Glassdoor as well (ironically, they get their data from the employee/site user). It's just often not very much data because only so many people can hold certain positions. As an example, as a CIO, I'd only get a history of 2-3 employees for even the largest of companies. It's not a position with many openings or much turnover.

So most of the positions on that site only have a couple of salaries reported. Better than nothing, but hard for a particular average of a metro area (especially before knowing the company). Most of my job leads come through headhunters, so I don't get to know the company initially.

[G-fused]

It's reported by the employee on Glassdoor, not sure about Salary.com. But those data must be taken with many grains of salt right? If I look up my role, I am grossly overpaid - and have been for previous roles as well. So my experience has been the opposite of the OP's.

I mean if you look up say Business Analyst or something, it can be so variable. DIfferent sized organizations, different benefits, different jobs descriptions and duties, etc. And I would think a C suite title would have a much greater variance than a front line person.

And there are industries and organizations that give out titles like they do paper clips. So there are VP's making 50K. Then there are places where their level I analysts start at over 50k.

It can be interesting to look at but I wouldn't let the information make me feel like I am getting taken advantage of.

Best of luck.

[Hivemind31]

Originally Posted by G-fused

It's reported by the employee on Glassdoor, not sure about Salary.com. But those data must be taken with many grains of salt right? If I look up my role, I am grossly overpaid - and have been for previous roles as well. So my experience has been the opposite of the OP's.

A rarity in my experience, but glad to hear that SOMEBODY is getting paid Also, confirmed that salary.com gets info from the employer.

Originally Posted by G-fused

I mean if you look up say Business Analyst or something, it can be so variable. DIfferent sized organizations, different benefits, different jobs descriptions and duties, etc. And I would think a C suite title would have a much greater variance than a front line person.

And there are industries and organizations that give out titles like they do paper clips. So there are VP's making 50K. Then there are places where their level I analysts start at over 50k.

All of this is definitely true. I guess I should have mentioned that I've compared my salary with the job title that best reflects my job duties and had the same results. I know that in the past, I've been an "IT Manager" that was basically a glorified network administrator, but even then was in a very low percentile.

Originally Posted by G-fused

It can be interesting to look at but I wouldn't let the information make me feel like I am getting taken advantage of.

Best of luck.

Thanks, I could use it!

In my case, it's not so much to feel bad about my own job (I can do that on my own!), but rather, to assist in negotiating properly during my job hunt. In particular, the opportunities I'm coming across are more in line with what I've always experienced (bottom 10th percentile) rather than what I keep discovering is the so called "median" for this type of job.

[unixfed]

I just started a new position and checked payscale.com prior to the offer letter. Their offer put me at about the 60th percentile for my title and area.